


Towards Another Day

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: Character Studies (Dragon Age) [4]
Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Clothing, Gen, Kirkwall, Lyrium, Lyrium Addiction, Lyrium Withdrawal, Mages and Templars, Pre-Dragon Age: Inquisition, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 15:12:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3772963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The man who leaves Kirkwall and the man who arrives in Haven are two very different people.  Cullen strives to leave the Order and its trappings behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Towards Another Day

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a tumblr post about Cullen choosing his own uniform for the Inquisition/the symbolism of his change in appearance between DA2 and DA:I. This fic includes lyrium withdrawal, travel, some angst, a lot of promise, and yes, Cullen's hair.

Cullen doffs his armor slowly, aware of the clank of every buckle, the movement of each joint.  The plate is cold and heavy beneath his hands, as familiar as his own skin and as foreign as it, too.  He lays the chestpiece down on the foot of his bunk, gets to work on the belt and skirt armor, slides them down past his hips and folds them carefully beside the chestpiece.  He removes the boots last, hands playing over the snaps with practiced ease, and stands them neatly beside the bed.

He stands there in his smallclothes, looking down at the flaming sword etched into the chestplate.  He has known that sword such a long time, seen it in his dreams, in his nightmares.  He reaches out and traces the dips in the metal with his fingertips, remembering shadow and flame, the smell of blood, the sound of screams.   _Champion of the just._  

He smiles grimly, shaking his head.  He leaves the armor where it sits, pulls on simple woolen trousers and linen overshirt, a coarse woven cloak, stiff, short leather boots that have barely been worn.  The clothing is strange against his skin.  He slides the straps of a canvas rucksack over his shoulders, adjusts the sword at his side, and he leaves the Gallows for the last time.

 

* * *

 

The journey from Kirkwall to Haven is not a brief one.  Cassandra has already left, searching for additional aid for her Inquisition.  Cullen travels alone.  

The ship from Kirkwall is a nightmare of tossing waves and the constant stench of brine.  He’s sick more than once, huddled in the hold out of the rain and the salt spray.  Everything is close and tight and crowded, human voices constantly muttering in his ears.  There are only a few lanterns feebly bringing light into the cold gloom.  

He murmurs bits of the Chant as the ship rocks beneath him, but he still feels an old forgotten panic clawing at the back of his mind.  When he closes his eyes he sees that little corner off the stairs from the Harrowing Chamber, the floor stones that he had memorized by the end, viscera and rotten bloom climbing the walls.  He sinks into himself, holding back bile, reminding himself he is not there, he is not there, this is _temporary_.

He suspects it would be worse without the lyrium.  It is the one thing from the Gallows he has brought with him, though the supply is short.  It eases the ensnaring memories, its blue gleam fighting back the dark.  There is one vial with a chip in the base, a tiny imperfection in its otherwise smooth casing.  He has marked that one for his last dose.  

The idea fills him with fear, and yet, exhilaration.  To be free of it  _completely_ – not just taking half-doses, the way he has been for weeks now –  He cannot imagine it.  The taste of it is always with him in the back of his mouth.  It has been there for years, settled in the hollow behind teeth and tongue; what would he be without it?

The last few months in Kirkwall, something changed.  He could not name it at first, not the way it manifested with such small things.  Dropping a pen when signing orders.  Forgetting the name of one of the recruits.  Making sure to always find himself at the front of the line when the lyrium was distributed.  Such little things.  He blamed overwork, stress, anything but what lay within those small bottles in his office.

Gradually, though, he began to see it for what it was.  It was a hunger that existed more in his mind than his body, like a mental tic he could not shake.  The urge repeated itself in his unsteady hands day by day.  It brought a sort of muffled blankness, as if he was watching life through a fogged glass removed by one degree.  

Once or twice Knight-Captain Rylen took him aside and in a low voice asked him if he was all right.  He had lied to the man, despite his normal unflinching honesty.   _Yes_ , he’d said,  _I’m fine_.  But sometimes he’d walk past Ser Roderick in the Gallows, see the man’s staring, drifting eyes, and the thought would seize him.   _How long do I have left?_

When the Seeker came to Kirkwall, looking for answers and aid, she asked if he would join her, asked if he would lead.  In a low voice he broached the question he feared.   _What about lyrium?_

And she had told him to try.  She had told him he could bear it.

The lyrium does help with the nausea and his tightened chest aboard the ship, but every time Cullen takes another lessened dose, he looks for the chipped vial, traces its lid with his fingertip.   _Soon enough._  Its finality frightens him, but he wants it more than the taste of blue.

* * *

 

Cullen steps off the ship in Highever, wrinkling his nose.  He will be happier when he puts the sea behind him.  The cobblestones weave and pitch before him until his equilibrium resets itself.  

He walks the narrow streets, seeing familiar Ferelden houses made of wood instead of clay and stone.  There are no chains here, no dark legacy of Tevinter writ into the bones of this place.  It’s a start.

He passes little shops, salesmen outside the doors beckoning him and the other freshly disembarked.  He browses the wares cautiously, strategically.  He thinks of his meetings with Cassandra.   _Commander_ , no Knight.  He will need to look the part.  

He finds the armor first.  He has felt too naked without its weight.  He avoids the stands with armor like a templar’s, massive pauldrons, cuirasses with the weight of an anvil.  He knows much of his duties will keep him from the field, thus obviating the need for heavier armor; what is more,  he does not wish to cut a templar’s silhouette any longer.

He settles on a slightly lighter cuirass of silverite, with paired vambraces and rerebraces, somewhat slimmer pauldrons.  It is protective but not confining.  He hands the gold over for the armor and a pair of sleeved leather jerkins willingly.  He is relieved at the breastplate’s lack of insignia in a way he cannot define.

 

* * *

 

Cullen walks past the ashes of old Amaranthine, past the new buildings that have been erected, the people beginning to make their homes there again.  The darkspawn invasion several years ago still leaves scars on the area, but the people are determined, and they have rebuilt much.  There’s hustle and bustle here, business and trade, and he feels the weight of his last wages in his coinpurse.  

He could have left Highever for Crestwood and then for Haven; it would be faster, more direct.  But that way would have taken him north of Lake Calenhad, beneath the shadow of Kinloch Hold.

He is not yet ready for that journey.  

So he takes the long way around, telling himself it will be good to see Ferelden once more.  Hasn’t he missed the smell of loam and pine, the sound of mabari barking in the fields?  He will travel as quickly as he can to make up for the longer route.

He finds himself in the market stalls of the rebuilt Amaranthine, searching again.  The new armor sits well against the leather and linen beneath it.  It’s a good fit, but he finds he feels restless without something more against his legs than simple wool.  One good kick at the tibia and he would be rendered helpless.  No, better to find boots and greaves, protect against the unexpected.

Cullen holds leather and metal in his bare hands.  They tremble, sometimes, the more he cuts the lyrium.  He is on quarter doses now.  He tries not to notice the way his hands look so uncertain, so fumbling.

He struggles with the coins, praying the shopkeeper does not notice the clumsy way he counts them out.  He takes a fine pair of reinforced leather boots, sturdy and reaching to his knees, with a thick strap of leather stretching over the shins; he takes two pair soft leather trousers and a broad, close-fitting belt.  They’re well-made; they will last.

In a new inn room that still smells of greenwood he sits at the edge of the bed.  He forces his hands to cooperate, asking them to lace up the back of the boots over his calves.  It takes him far longer than it should.  He keeps dropping the laces, watching with growing frustration as they slip through his stuttering fingers, and by the end his hands ache deep in bone and sinew.  He throws himself back on the bed and stares up at the ceiling, arms limp at his sides, palms open, fingers slightly curled.  He feels the throb of his pulse in each fingertip, sisters to the beat in his chest, and he tries not to think about the locked box in his knapsack.

 

* * *

 

Denerim is noisy and bawdy and raw.  It reminds him of Lowtown in Kirkwall, everyone rushing to be somewhere else.  He blends into the throng of people, no one looking askance at another dirt-stained traveler with a sword at his side.  Denerim has been rebuilt too, and the neighborhoods are a curious mix of buckling, worn-down houses and new walls barely weathered.  The people are the same, some of them faded and tired, others brimming with hope.

The crowds set him on edge.  He has never liked them, and he likes them less now that his nerves seem so sensitized.  He is down to just one quartered dose per day now, and he feels it more than he had hoped.  He weaves through the waves of people the best he can.

 _Ser_ , someone calls in the crowd, and he turns before realizing they are not speaking to him.  He glances down at himself, silverite amor gleaming even beneath the smudges of travel, and frowns.  He does not need to be another soldier.  

He stays away from the armor shops, ducking instead into a shop that does not smell of iron and steel.  It’s unfamiliar to him.  His hands reach out to finger velvet, silk, samite, soft-spun wool.  They’re things he has never truly thought about, for why would he, clad in the armor of the just?  

An ache behind his right temple begins to nag, and he closes his eyes, taking a deep breath.  These pains are becoming more common, but they are bearable.  He hopes they remain that way.

He passes a stand of tunics, his eye catching one in particular.  He lifts the cloth in one hand, feels the softness of lustrous maroon cotton, trimmed in gold.  It is fine cloth, not a common soldier’s garb, and loose enough it can be worn over the light armor resting on his shoulders.  Yet it is not ostentatious enough to suggest frivolity, and it is sturdy and serviceable.  

He leaves the shop with the tunic beneath his arm, tied with a length of soft rope, and though his head aches in the noise of the streets, he is satisfied.  

 

* * *

 

The journey from Denerim to South Reach takes longer than expected.  Driving rains pummel him and bandits occasionally try their luck, though his hands still remember his sword like it is an extension of himself, and they quickly learn to try nothing with the man in red and silver.  The weather provides the greater delay, and when he finally gets to South Reach he is sore and damp and tired, and there is only one half-empty vial of lyrium remaining in the little locked box.

He takes a room at the inn nearest the great road and he eats in the tavern, taking his time.  The longer it takes him to eat, the longer it will take him to go to bed; the more time he can give himself before he faces that last vial the better.  But the noise and hubbub in the tavern wears on him and he retires earlier than he likes, dread filling him with every step on the stairs.

He catches sight of himself in the cracked mirror in the room, and he scowls at the sight.  His hair has gotten far too long, and the rains have made the curls explode viciously.  He sighs.  He has never liked his hair, it being far too unruly, but he has never known what to do with it to fix it.  Now the curls threaten to fall into his eyes, spiraling boldly from his scalp.  His hair is longer than it has been in years, and his hands itch for a scissor.  He has trimmed it himself since he was a youth, but he wonders if a change would not be better.

He wipes his face with his hand, letting his gaze fall on his rucksack.  He can put it off no longer.  He kneels at the side of his bed, hands rummaging in the bag.  The box feels so much heavier than it used to, though it’s emptier than it’s ever been.

He holds the chipped vial of lyrium in his hand.  He cracks the lid, brings a last swallow of blue to his mouth.  It tastes of regret, uncertainty… promise.

He does not sleep.

In the morning he leaves the inn, exhaustion bearing down on him, and he stumbles to the market for supplies.  He passes a small shop wedged between a bookstore and a shoe store, with an old bent man standing near a weathered stool.  He asks the barber how much and the man gives him a price, beckoning toward the stool.  Cullen sits and the man drapes a sheet over him.  

It’s strange, feeling someone else’s hands on his hair, the snick of scissors in his ear.  The man mentions some ideas in a creaking voice, a certain kind of boar’s-hair brush, smoothing oils.  Cullen looks at the corkscrewed curls golden against the dark sheet, considering.

That night with an empty lyrium kit on the bedside table Cullen stands at the mirror, pouring a small amount of oil into his cupped hand.  It slips between his palms and knuckles, softens the trimmed and wiry curls.  Skeptically he tries the brush, hand trembling only slightly.  It pulls gently at his hair, turning short and wayward curls to soft, smooth waves.  He brushes his hair slowly, methodically.  The longer this takes the less time there will be to lay in bed, the less time to be hungry for what he will no longer grant himself.

He cocks his head to one side, surprised at his reflection.  His hair is suddenly and strangely manageable.  He reaches up with one hand and ruffles it, watching as it falls back into place, the curls remaining subdued, tamed.  

If nothing else, it will be easier to brush now.  He chuckles, slightly, at the idea.  

The hunger unfurls within him, a hollow thirst that does not slake with water.  He grips the edge of the sink, shaking with need.  He closes his eyes.  He had expected it, knew that he could not escape it, but the distraction of the mirror and the brush had been welcome all the same.

 

* * *

 

The Hinterlands are colder than he expected, and it is slow going to Redcliffe.  His hands are cold all the time, even when the sun shines brightly.  He is not sure if it is the Hinterlands or lyrium’s lack but he shivers more often than not.  He sleeps in a small tent in the woods, but it’s a poor sleep, often broken by dreams he tries not to acknowledge.

Redcliffe hums with nervous energy.  There is something in the air that makes his chest hurt.  Templars throng the town, and he hears whispers of desertion from Kinloch Hold.  He passes by groups of templars in the streets, and he  _smells_  it on their breath, hints of lyrium hanging in their exhalations.  It makes the hunger in him bite and gnaw, and he keeps a wide berth.

He wonders if they see it in his face, if they sense he is – he was – a templar, too.  He ducks his head, and mutters a prayer in hopes that no one recognizes him for what he was.

The tavern is crowded with refugees and regulars, people swapping rumors of rebel mages and brewing war.  There are worries about winter coming on, crops going to seed with the unrest nearby.  He hears the locals fret about the coming snow.  Any week now, he gleans.

 _Snow?_   He has forgotten how cold it can be this far south.  Kirkwall was nearly tropical by comparison, and he has no suitable cold-weather clothing.  The cloak he left with is tattered and torn after long weeks of traveling, and it is thin, meant to be worn during Kirkwall’s mild winters.  It will not withstand the chill of southern Ferelden.

He avoids the templars in the town’s small market.  There are only a few stalls dedicated to tailor’s wares, but he searches through them closely.  He purchases a fitted pair of leather gloves immediately, lined with a thin layer of fennec fur.  The chill in his hands lessens significantly, to his relief.

He browses cloaks and greatcoats, frowning as he does.  They are all too thin, still, unlikely to provide more warmth than the cloak he has now.  A few of them are sturdier, but he can tell they will inhibit movement if he has need of sword and shield.  They will not do.

The last stall in the row gives him pause.  Furs are on display, laid out on the table.  He removes one glove to feel them, and stops at a wide mantle of black and russet fur.  He catches the eye of the shopkeeper and she nods to him, gesturing to the stained old mirror behind her.

Cullen pulls the glove back onto his hand and lifts the mantle, settling it around his shoulders, adjusting it until it is even.  His hands are getting cold again, the gloves only a partial fix to what chills them.  He tries to warm them by crossing his arms and tucking his hands into the crooks of his elbows.

He glances into the mirror.  His eyes travel over the unmarked armor, the tunic, the leather gloves and boots, the rope and leather belts.  The fur crests over his shoulders, warm and surprisingly heavy.  He straightens up to better bear its weight.

His hands drift down to the pommel of the sword at his side, and he thinks,  _I look nothing like a templar._

And the thought warms him more than gloves or fur.

 

* * *

 

His footsteps lead deep tracks in the snow.  Redcliffe seems a distant memory, and now – now he stands in the valley of the Temple of Sacred Ashes.  _Though all before me is shadow, yet shall the Maker be my guide.  I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond._

The village of Haven is more alive than he expected, with faithful and refugees and half-trained soldiers milling through the little town.  A few look at him, questioningly, but it is not until he reaches the Chantry that he is asked his name by a young soldier in a green hood.

“Cullen Rutherford,” he says.  “Seeker Pentaghast is expecting me.”

The soldier disappears into the Chantry.  Cullen watches the man go, feeling the cold breath of winter at his back, the warm, welcoming air from inside the Chantry at his face.  He is here, and he feels both strangely calm and deeply anxious.

 _Perhaps she has changed her mind.  Perhaps there is someone more suitable._  The thought sneaks in, bitter and worried, one of the worst kinds.

But there’s Cassandra bold and true, a faint smile on her face as she strides purposefully toward him, and his doubt falls away.

“Seeker Cassandra, it is good to see you again,” he says, smiling.  He holds out a hand.

She grips his hand firmly, warmth filling her features, her hand strong against his despite the cold that lingers inside his glove.   Cassandra looks at him proudly.  In that instant he knows that she knows, that she senses the diminishing lyrium in his blood, that she approves of what he is doing.

 _This is where I am meant to be,_  he thinks, and when Cassandra speaks, he stands taller.

“Welcome to Haven… Commander Cullen.”

**Author's Note:**

> The song [“Muscle‘n Flo” by Menomena](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crvv47_MTK0) provided a lot of inspiration as well:
> 
>   _Oh in the morning_  
>  I stumble  
> my way towards  
> the mirror and my makeup  
> it’s light out  
> and I now  
> face just what I’m made of  
> There’s so much more  
> left to do  
> Well I’m not young  
> But I’m not through  
> Oh in the evening  
> I stumble  
> my way towards another day  
> we struggle  
> it’s dark out  
> it’s time now  
> that I pick up my hustle


End file.
